MY STORY WITH ALZHEIMER'S

Monday, October 3, 2016

theres a brain drain acoming

THERES A BRAIN DRAIN ACOMING
in the united states there are 10,000 folks turning 65
that if my math is correct
3,650,000 a year

that number is just starting and will increase as
more of us baby boomers
leave the workforce
leaving a brain drain that may be hard to replace
by
newby milleneals generation xers etc

experience and knowledge are hard to replace
its not taught in school
cant get it from a book
from the internet
cant google it if you need it
facebook well thats not a good source either

its all up in the brains of those grey headed folks
about to retire

now some companies especially the tech and computer
companies
seem to replace these grey handed folks too soon
with
newbys
why
$$$$$

they are cheaper since they can be hired at a lower
starting salary than an older more tenured experienced worker

now
i can only speak to the medical profession
and
maybe to school teaching since my wife she and many
of my siblings were and are school teachers

when i retired
not because i was ready yet
i always told folks i was just getting better at being a doctor

i learned to listen more than just treating a patient
having learned that sometimes
writing a prescription or ordering a test really in the
long run didnt make much difference in the patients well being
but
listening did

also
i had a few years earlier helped master the art of proper insurance
coding
which allowed the clinic where i worked to collect millions
of dollars from insurance companies that was being lost
to improper coding

neither of these things were taught to me in medical school
or residency training
i learned them from experiences
which only time in service could allow to develop

now
15 years ago i moved from austin from the clinic i worked at
to the clinic where i was working when i retired
the doctor next to me was just out of residency program
a newby but not experienced in real life doctoring
she
was much like i was when i started practicing medicine
full of knowledge all uptodate
but
lacking real life experience

i bet a lot of the older doctors just winked when i and others
started working in that town
saying
theyll learn

well i did
and
i passed it on to her

talk to her now and she will tear up talking about how
much she learned sitting just down the desk from me
i of course learned from her
but
she learned
how to practice the art of medicine
how to do proper coding to increase hers and the clinics income
how to handle difficult patients
how to decide what to handle yourself and what to refer on
how to refer the patient to the right specialist
how to handle interactions with personnal and the business
side of medicine
how to be a good doctor
how to handle your own personal finances
how to handle your own personal well being

now
i wasnt an expert in all this stuff
but
i passed what i knew along to her

what would she have learned if she had been placed by a newby
two newbies together would had done ok
but
would have missed out on a lot of education

like with me
those grey headed folks retiring
what they know isnt probably written down
its
all in their head

businesses and schools need to tap that knowledge
before its all gone

i still in my weekly life realize how much stuff i had
accumulated up there in my brain cells
occasionally i still pass some of it along
but
eventually it will be all lost

we in the us
are just at the start of this brain and knowledge and experience
drain
that will take a long time to replace